


for we are lost

by amako



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Clan Politics, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Investigations, Kekkei Genkai | Bloodline Limit, Mystery, Secrets, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-07-18 00:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16107395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amako/pseuds/amako
Summary: When they come back from Wave, a message is waiting at the gates for Sakura. It's Haruno Clan matters, and as clan business, it takes precedence over her mission report.Sakura waves goodbye to her team and disappears at the corner of a street.They never see her again.





	1. Disappearance

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ShikaSaku Week 2018  
> Day 4: Gift/Abilility

In the end, Sasuke never leaves the village.

 

Thing is, above all, Sasuke is a creature of justice. That's why he's so obsessed with Naruto, who oozes fairness from every pore of his small body. He wants justice for his clan, justice for his family, he wants to kill that madman who decided he had any right to destroy his life. Justice.

When they come back from Wave, a message is waiting at the gates for Sakura. It's Haruno Clan matters, and as clan business, it takes precedence over her mission report. Officially, because there is a jōnin on her team who can do it in her place. Off-record, because clans have too much of a hold on village politics.

Sakura waves goodbye to her team and disappears at the corner of a street.

They never see her again.

 

She doesn't show up for training the next day. She doesn't come to team dinner at Ichiraku in the evening. The day after, she misses training again. This time, Kakashi makes it their mission to track her down.

Official records state that her birth family was killed during the Kyūbi's attack. She lives in the Haruno Estate. When they ask for her at the Estate, no one seems to know who they're talking about. They ask servants, clan members, but no one can remember a Haruno Sakura.

They go to the Academy. Sasuke and Naruto browse their files for hours, waiting until the teachers' room is empty to look. Kakashi draws the teachers out and ask them about Sakura. Iruka gives him a puzzled look and assures him he never had a student named Sakura. The files don't mention her either.

It's like she never existed. Kurenai and Asuma don't know who they're talking about. In team 8, only Kiba seems to know of a pink-haired girl, though he can't tell them where he met her. Chōji is just as confused, but when Sasuke asks Shikamaru and Ino, both remember perfectly well their classmate.

So they take them aside, and they explain everything. When they tell Asuma, he can't quite place her, but he has knowledge of Sakura's existence. Hinata tells them she remembers talking to her one, in class.

Kakashi takes it up with the Sandaime.

His only answer is a blank look and a strict order to forget about it.

The next day, there is an ANBU trailing him when he goes to speak with his team. So he repeats what Sarutobi said and waits until the ANBU leaves to tell the truth.

Sakura is gone, and everyone is trying their best to erase her from history.

 

In the end, Sasuke never leaves the village. He's too busy seeking justice for his forgotten teammate.

 

 

 

Team 7 remains a three-men squad for four years. Sasuke and Naruto are both chūnin now, and so is the rest of their promotion. Only Shikamaru and Kiba made jōnin in the last year. They regularly meet to talk about Sakura, because they noticed that the least they mention her, the quicker they forget.

One day, Shikamaru is leaving the jōnin station and he passes by the Academy on his way home. He stops instantly when he hears a teacher's call.

 

“Haruno-kun! You forgot your bag!”

 

He turns around in a flash, looking frantically around. It doesn't take him long to spot the child. It's a little girl, pink-hair and fair skin, big, brown eyes zeroing on her teacher. She's ten at most, almost at the end of her Academy years. Her back is sporting the white and red crest they all used to see on Sakura's back.

Shikamaru leans against a wall, hidden in his beloved shadows, and waits for the child to pass by him. His hand flashes through a sign, and the girl stops. He goes around her frozen body and kneels in front of her.

 

“Hello there! I'm Shikamaru. You teacher told me great things about you, so I thought I'd come and show you my special technique. It's called the shadow manipulation, and it lets me take control of people.”

 

He releases the girl in the next second, and she looks at him with wide, excited eyes.

 

“Do you have any abilities of your own, Haruno-kun? Maybe we can share!”

 

He feels uncomfortable. They never taught him to manipulate children, and yet here he is. Using techniques normally meant for enemy shinobi on a little girl, just because of her name. He just wants her talking about her clan.

 

“Yeah!” She says in a high-pitched voice. “Tōrin-kun helps me in class sometimes.”

Shikamaru frowns. “Did he teach you a jutsu?”

“No, no!” She laughs. “Tōrin-kun _is_ my jutsu! Do you have one too?”

His blood is turning into ice. “One what?”

“A voice in your head, like Tōrin-kun. Kāchan told me everyone has one.”

“I- I don't have one. You're lucky, Haruno-kun.”

“That's alright,” she smiles. “I know Sakura's dad didn't have one either.”

 

Shikamaru stops breathing. His heart is beating so fast he can't hear anything past the blood rushing through his veins.

 

“Sakura, uh?” He says, his voice shaking. “You think I can talk to her? Maybe show her my shadow manipulation, too?”

“Oh yeah, she'd really like that! She's super strong, you know? She has all those important missions with the Hokage and stuff.”

“Well how about that, Haruno-kun. Why don't you bring me to Sakura next time she's in town? I'll be waiting for you at the Academy every day, and I'll even teach you some stuff. Deal?”

“Deal!”

 

The girl laughs, high fiving him with a grin. He waves goodbye and she runs off, happy and carefree. And his ticket to finding their lost friend.

 

 

 

The door to the Uchiha Estate slides open so hard the wood cracks. Naruto and Sasuke are on their feet in an instant, kunai in hand.

 

“What the hell, Shikamaru?!”

The Nara doesn't let him continue. “I found Sakura.”

 

Sasuke drops to the floor, like he was struck. Naruto absent-mindedly pats his head, but he's staring at Shikamaru without blinking.

 

“I was at the Academy, and there was a Haruno girl, so I talked to her and she mentioned Sakura and I'm scheduled to meet with her soon and—”

 

Shikamaru doesn't realize how hard he's shaking until Naruto's hand slides inside of his. He looks at their joined fingers with wide, wild eyes.

 

“I found Sakura,” he repeats. “We didn't—”

“We didn't imagine her,” Sasuke whispers.

 

They didn't. And now it's time to prove it.

 


	2. Shura

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so impressed and happy about the response to this story!! Thank you so much, I'm super glad to share this with you and I hope you'll like this new chapter. Don't forget to tell me what you thought! A very happy new year to everyone ♥

The word gets around the Konoha 11 in less than a day. Almost immediately, everyone knows that they've found Sakura again, and they have a very real chance to get answers for those four years of questions. What's left of Team 7 doesn't know what to do with itself, pacing around in the house like feral wolves waiting for any kind of prey.

Kakashi isn't helping, just as shaken as his remaining students. It's only the fear of losing the only lead in years that makes them stay put.

Shikamaru on the other hand, has spent the whole week barricaded inside the Nara Compound, sitting still, trying to come up with every possible scenario in the upcoming meeting to have a back up plan no matter what falls on him when he'll face Sakura. The only times he comes out is to go meet with the little Haruno, trying to coax more out of her. So far, he hasn't been very lucky, but he dutifully goes to see her at the end of class every day.

Finally, Shura (the girl) tells him that Sakura just came back from a mission and if he wants, he can come to the Compound to meet her. She knows Sakura very well, you see, so she's sure she'd like to have a friend her age. There isn't anyone else in the clan she talks to, except for Shura and the other children when she comes back from missions. She's always very tired and Shura thinks it's not very nice of the Hokage to make her run around everywhere like that, but at least it means the children get to pile up on her whenever she has a minute for them, and she tells them super cool stories!

Shikamaru nods and stores everything in his brilliant mind while Shura leads him through the village until they reach the Haruno Estate. But instead of taking him through the front door like he feared (because how is he going to explain his presence without alerting whoever created this mess in the first place?) Shura giggles and takes him to the back of the Haruno land, where it meets the walls of the village.

 

“That's our training grounds! Sakura was back this morning but she never rests,” she tuts, “so she's probably training already. We can make this a surprise! I'm sure she'll love to speak to someone like her.”

 

Shura's smile is too bright for a clan that lied to them all those years. She's happy, and she's trusting, and she hasn't a single mean bone in her body. Shikamaru prays that she never gets fucked over by shinobi life like Chōji did, from that mission a few months ago, that lead to few smiles and bitter laughs from the brightest friend in his life. He prays that she never needs to wash her hands in blood, until someone finds her scrubbing it raw over the sink, blue eyes wide and limbs shaking, her purple clothes stained—

Shikamaru takes a deep breath and banishes Ino's and Chōji's images from his mind. They all suffered, since they got their first promotion and met their team. They all went through sorrow and guilt and shame so bad it taints their laughter and their nights until all they've left is a wild hunt for a girl that vanished, the only thing keeping them all together, obsessed and thirsty for blood.

Shura tugs on his sleeve, a worried look on her face, her bright smile gone. His heart breaks a little, one more bright thing he destroyed with his calloused hands, his shadow growing over hers like a predator. He swallows hard, follows her when she lives and tries his very best not to throw up the bile pooling in his throat.

 

 

The training grounds are small, suited for a small clan and an even smaller number of shinobi amongst the Haruno civilians. In contrast, Sakura is a gigantic paradox where she's punching the training dummy.

Shikamaru takes a moment just to watch her, to soak on everything she is and what she represents, that hope they all desperately held onto that they hadn't gone mad, that she actually exists.

Her hair is still cherry blossom pink, but it's cut close to her scalp, probably to even it out with the side that got heavily burned where no hair is growing. The burn covers a third of her head, curling around her right ear then moving onto her temple and her cheek bone, too close to her eye so her eyelid is drooping a little.

She's paler than he remembers and did he imagine the mole on her left cheek or did she got it removed? She way taller, much more than he thought she would get given her size when they were kids, with broad shoulders and hard muscles, scars and burns marking her skin like a tally of missions he doesn't want to think about.

She's dressed all in dark grey, in a uniform that's a little too recognizable for his taste. The porcelain mask laying on the ground some metres from her is answer enough and oh look, the bile is back in his mouth. He can't see what kind of weapon she uses, because she's using her bare hands, but ANBU normally know at least kenjutsu, so there's that.

 

“Sakura! I brought you a friend!”

 

She jumps in surprise, her fist missing the training post and she crashes into it hard enough that it goes down. She rises, splinters in her hands and forearms, and she turns slowly to face him. Her face is blank, unreadable.

 

“Shura,” she says softly, “step away from him, please.”

“But, Saku-”

“ _Now_.”

 

Shura makes a small, quiet noise, running to her legs without looking at him. There are kunai in Sakura's hands and he didn't see her grab them.

 

“What do you want?”

 

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out but a garbled noise, like he's choking on all the things he wants to say.

 

“I asked you a question, Shikamaru.”

 

He lets out the breath he didn't realize he was holding. So she does remember them. It's not as much of a comfort that he'd hoped. It means she didn't even try to contact them when she was taken away. Was she even taken away? Her face, her expressions, it's so different from the smiling, extrovert girl he remembers. Was it brainwashing? Blackmail? Did she make a conscious choice?

He needs to get her to talk.

 

“I wanted to see you. You've been gone- everyone was looking for you. Is looking for you. What happened to you? Why-”

“Shut up. You never should have found me in the first place.”

Shura shrinks on herself. “I'm sorry, Sakura, I didn't know I couldn't-”

“It's okay, Shura-chan, I'm not mad. We should have told you.” She looks down at the girl, a small smile on her lips. “I'm going to fix it.”

 

Shura freezes, backing down a bit from Sakura's side. She looks at Shikamaru, then back at Sakura, with a sad, confused face.

 

“With Ikasa-san?”

Sakura sighs. “Yeah.”

“But- Sakura, he's nice! I promise, he's so kind!”

 

Now that sounds bad. Shikamaru slightly bending his knees. His hands hover near his weapon pouch. He doesn't want to fight her. It's the absolute last thing he wants to do. But he can't let her kill him either, and he doesn't have a single doubt she's good enough to do it. He might be jōnin, but a rookie jōnin, and looking at her porcelain mask, she's been ANBU long enough to seriously damage it.

 

“I'm sorry, Shura. You don't have to stay, if you don't want to.”

The girl stands straighter. “No. It's my fault he's here.” Sakura's nod is sharp. Her hand curls into a loose fist.

 

Shikamaru holds his breath. He counts. One. Two. Sakura's fist becomes tighter. Three. Four. His mind burns. He's shaking. Five. Six. Sakura hits her own chest with her fist hard enough that it knocks the breath out of her. The punch is still vibrating through her body and it's like a switch is turned on.

Her eyes turn milky white, a blank canvas, and her short hair rises on her head. Her skin does something weird, crackling like lighting; he blinks quickly, his eyes stinging from the lack of movement and it's enough for him to miss her skin turning deep black, from head to toe.

He scrambles for a kunai, his remaining hand locking into the Shadow Manipulation seal, when she launches for him.

She's too fast. Way too fast. In a blink, she's pressed against him, her face a breath away from his, and her right fingers are pressed against his forehead. He looks into her white eyes. His world turns black.

 

 

Team 7 is waiting near the Nara Compound; they've been waiting since Shikamaru left with Shura, truly.

When he turns around the corner, they crowd him instantly. Shikamaru backs away a bit, laughing quietly. They're very excited to see him, it seems. He snorts, his hands going into his pockets. It went surprisingly well, despite what he was expecting at first. He tells them at much and Sasuke looks like he's about to punch him if he doesn't tell them more really quick. Naruto is tearing up.

Shikamaru tilts his head. They're exaggerating a bit, aren't they?

 

“You do realize I only went to meet Shura's parents, right?”

 

Silence.

 

“What?”

Naruto grabs him, shaking him. “Shikamaru, stop stalling! What did you learn about Sakura? What happened to her? Did you talk to her?”

 

Shikamaru frowns.

 

“Who?”

 


End file.
